A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
Relationship OCD by Sheva Rajaee is written from the perspective of a therapist who herself has dealt with relationship OCD (ROCD). What a perfect combination! I love that more and more mental health professionals are willing to talk about their own mental health challenges. Throughout the book, the author emphasizes the importance of learning to… Continue reading Book Review: Relationship OCD
Musings on the Murky Dating and Relationships Terrain is the remarkable memoir #8 from Jacqueline-of-all-trades Marie Abanga, aka MAG. MAG is a lawyer, CBT therapist, motivational speaker, author, and various other things, including Superwoman. In this memoir, the focus is on what she's learned from dating and relationships over the years. As usual, she brings… Continue reading Book Review: Musings on the Murky Dating and Relationships Terrain
The Better Boundaries Workbook by Sharon Martin uses a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach, incorporating mindfulness and self-compassion, to help readers establish boundaries to function better in relationships. The author is a psychotherapist, and if you're into mental health on Pinterest, you've probably come across some of her pins. The book begins with a look… Continue reading Book Review: The Better Boundaries Workbook
This post was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest about safe vs. unsafe people, but it's along the same lines as what I've written before about the toxic person label. Is that kind of whole-person labelling actually useful? https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/618541330074396290/sent/?invite_code=f51df0af6c36491ba932da4de7aeeb6d&sender=846958411080851028&sfo=1 When I came across this Instagram graphic image shared on Pinterest, my first reaction was… Continue reading Are You an Unsafe Person?
Honesty is the best policy, right? I say no, no, no, no. And let’s add on one more no, just for good measure. I would also like to propose two kinds of “honesty”, only one of which I think actually involves honesty. First, you’ve got things that can be answered or described objectively. Let's say… Continue reading Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Honesty?
Mental illness stigma is a very real problem. Those of us living with mental illness usually aren't thrilled when people casually toss around mental illness diagnoses as adjectives, such as "she's so bipolar" or "he's so OCD" or "everyone's a little ADHD." Yet, when it comes to narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), all of a sudden… Continue reading Stigma Is Bad… Except for Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
The Gratitude Project, edited by Jeremy Adam Smith et al., is a project of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley in California. It includes chapters by a number of different authors on various aspects of gratitude. I liked that the book took a realistic approach to what gratitude can and can not do.… Continue reading Book Review: The Gratitude Project
The internet is full of talk about toxic people. Searching for "toxic person" yields 295 million hits on Google. That's a whole lotta toxicity. If someone is abusive, you deserve to a) be free from them, and b) call them toxic or whatever else you might choose. But those 295 million online hits aren't all… Continue reading The “Toxic Person” Label and Mental Illness
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg describes a form of compassionate communication. The foreword is by Deepak Chopra, which wasn't a great start for me, as New Age really isn't my thing. Rosenberg and I seem to look at the world very differently, so this is less book review and more… Continue reading Book Review: Nonviolent Communication
This Voyage of a Lifetime is the third book in the Learners at Love trilogy by Melody Finch of Caramel, Learner at Love. The books revolve centrally around Annabelle Grainger, her husband Robin, and her close friend Chris. The story is told from a third person objective point of view, but the three main characters… Continue reading Book Review: This Voyage of a Lifetime